Opinion piece by Nathan Ting MIEAust CPEng NER. Nathan Ting is a Chartered professional electrical engineer with over 7 years’ experience in the heavy industry. He is Cell Engineering’s North Australia regional manager, Young Engineers Australia Northern Chair and Engineers Australia Northern Committee member. Nathan actively engages with local schools and Charles Darwin University to promote and build awareness of the STEM professions.
I recently came across an amusing definition of ‘engineer’: "someone who does precision guesswork based on unreliable data provided by those of questionable knowledge – see also ‘wizard’ and ‘magician’."
It’s pretty awesome that we as engineers are cross referenced with wizards and magicians. There must be a mysterious power within the engineering sector that allows us to conjure clean water, electricity and infrastructure for the community.
I believe engineers naturally want to make things work and make things work better. It’s important that we start fostering a love of STEM in our children through their play, so we can increase the number of engineers into the future for the benefit of our communities.
I’m on a mission to help plant a seed in children’s minds that the wizardry and magic they enjoy in their imaginative play, and the curiosity they have for dismantling and destroying things can lead them to the engineering profession.
This might be achieved by praising a child for solving a problem that’s important to them or sharing an experience from our own childhood that’s relatable to our profession.
When the time is right, I’ll be telling my daughters a story of a Christmas long ago when I blew up numerous new Christmas lights because I didn’t read the manual.
My eldest daughter, who is 5 years old, pronounces ‘engineering’ as ‘Angelina’ – and I don’t believe this is in reference to the cartoon ballerina. So, I might hold off on the formal tutorial on incident energy calculation for electrical equipment for a while yet.
There are many activities that I did as a kid that are relatable to the engineering profession, and these include:
- Going to the beach digging holes in the sand and looking for treasure – mining engineering
- Looking for fish and crabs in rivers and rock pools and making ant or worm farms – environmental engineering
- Building cubby houses – structural engineering
- Building go karts – mechanical engineering
- Cooking – chemical engineering
- Building bike jumps and tracks – civil engineering
- Using the environment and weather to spin wind mills and race boats down streams and using the sun’s energy to burn things with a magnifying glass – renewable energy engineering
If these examples don’t interest our youngsters or sufficiently show them what engineers do, we can always revert to being magicians.
Main image: stock image.
Inset image: Nathan Ting MIEAust CPEng NER.